—P. Michaels. FLEMISH DRAWINGS OF THE RENAISSANCE
The LITTLE SILVER BELL ON THE DOOR OF THE GALLERY ON THE PONT AU CHANGE RANG, BUT THE VISITORS STEPPED RIGHT THROUGH THE DOOR. There was a flurry and a twittering, and the curly-headed cherubs abandoned their dice on the counter and vanished through the ceiling.
“So, Hadriel, we’ve found you at last. Look at you here! Just what do you think you are doing?” Uriel’s voice was deep and fierce. Behind him stood Michael the Archangel with his fiery sword.
“Do put that sword away, Michael. You’ll set fire to some of my objets d’art,” said Hadriel, thoroughly unrepentant.
“We have informed the Father that you have abandoned your duty. I wouldn’t be surprised if he demotes you for this, Hadriel.”
“It was all an inspiration. It just came over me, you understand. I imagine you haven’t had any inspirations in simply ages, or you’d be considerably more understanding. Look here, see all these lovely things that have been created? I do my job ten times as fast with my new method. I’ve covered this whole city with a web of inspiration, and next month I’m opening up several branch operations. What do you think of Amsterdam?”
“We think you are a troublemaker, Hadriel. You’ve set the whole world on its ear again. And where do we find you? Keeping a shop. It’s lowly, that’s what. It tarnishes our reputation.”
“Is that all you care about? I’d say an angel ought to do what has to be done. You’re even more snobbish than the seraphim. I’ve never been afraid to get my hands dirty, like some I know. Why, I’ve even boxed Belphagor, and what thanks do I get?”
The two archangels conferred briefly. “Boxed Belphagor? How did you do that?” Hadriel seated himself on his counter, kicking his bare feet and examining his fingernails.
“Don’t you wish you knew,” he said.
“Hadriel, you lack respect.”
“Oh, I have lots of respect. I have respect for my job. I have respect for being an angel. I have respect for the Father, too. How do you know this wasn’t all His idea, anyway? After all, He knows everything, before and after time, alpha and omega, the whole lot.” Michael scratched his head in bewilderment.
“Nevertheless, you’re coming with us,” Uriel said firmly. “And bring those cherubs of yours with you. I’m sure we’ll have the whole story from them. Hadriel, we expected better of you.” Together, the three of them rose through the ceiling and were soon flying over the walls of the city, the cherubs, now silent, fluttering about them like a flock of chastened sparrows. Beyond them, the clouds spread to the horizon over the undulating French landscape. Here and there, on forest and field, a light spring rain fell. Where the clouds broke, patches of blue spattered across the sky. One of the cherubs pulled on Hadriel’s gown. He looked down. There on a narrow road far from the city, two horses carrying double toiled along in the mud, followed by a packhorse laden with baggage topped off by an odd wooden box and a birdcage. Riding behind the man in front was a woman enveloped in a heavy cloak and hood. Neither were enough to disguise the fact that she was dressed in a novice’s gray gown.
“Look,” said Hadriel. “It’s Mistress Susanna.” Uriel looked disgusted.
“So now you are acquainted with nuns who elope,” he said.
“Oh, not really. She’s all right. It’s just another of her deceptions.”
“Hadriel, you had something to do with this, didn’t you?” said Michael, in a tone of growing suspicion.
“Not his job,” said Uriel.
“Oh, no. Really, it was,” said Hadriel. “Look, just wait a minute, will you? I promised Mistress Susanna a rainbow.”
“One minute and one only,” said Michael. Hadriel blew and fussed and rearranged the clouds so that the sun shone through the falling rain. A great rainbow sprang across the sky, wider than a mountain, its half arc disappearing into the clouds above. Inside it and opposite it sprang up two little rainbows, full arcs with feet that rested on the rolling countryside. From the angels’ vantage point, it seemed that the riders were toiling along through a bath of color where the smallest rainbow touched the ground. Around them, dappled sunlight made the first bits of green life shine as they pushed their way up through the winter-dead meadows.
“Hmph. You do make a good rainbow, Hadriel,” said Michael. “That, I’ll grant you.”
“But as usual, you’ve overdone,” sniffed Uriel as they vanished away into eternity.
About the Author
JUDITH MERKLE RILEY is a professor of political science, and has a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. She is the bestselling author of A Vison of Light, In Pursuit of the Green Lion, and The Water Devil, all reissued by Three Rivers Press.
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Margaret of Ashbury
TRILOGY BY
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A VISION OF LIGHT
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IN PURSUIT OF THE GREEN LION
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THE WATER DEVIL
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THREE RIVERS PRESS • NEW YORK
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1996 by Judith Merkle Riley
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Three Rivers Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
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Three Rivers Press and the Tugboat design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books (USA) Inc., New York, in 1996.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Riley, Judith Merkle.
The serpent garden: a novel / Judith Merkle Riley.—1st pbk. ed.
p. cm.
1. Women artists—Fiction. 2. Angels—Fiction. 3. Great Britain—History—Henry VIII, 1509–1547—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3568.I3794S47 2008
813'.54—dc22
2007027619
eISBN: 978-0-307-41011-5
v3.0
The Serpent Garden - Judith Merkle Riley Page 51
